


A Tedious Affair

by VisceralComa



Series: Ancestors [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Modern Character in Thedas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 10:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15661173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VisceralComa/pseuds/VisceralComa
Summary: AU - what would happen if Lena, not exactly a dwarf, ended up in the fade all by herself.





	A Tedious Affair

Selena woke up in a field with a green sky and large floating rocks the size of mountains around her. In the distance a dark glittering _black city._ Where was she? She walked around in a circle, her footsteps slow and sluggish one moment then speedy the next. The dirt did not rise with her movement or even showed signs of disturbance. It remained pristine. It was wrong, unnatural, and... _wrong._  
  
"Hello?" Even her voice was wrong. She turned her gaze to the floating mountains. "Pretty sure mountains aren't supposed to float. What are they the Hallelujah mountains?" She snorted. Again her voice was wrong and it annoyed her.  
  
_"Who do we have here?"_  
  
Lena turned to look at the approaching man with purple skin and large horns. His entire body on display and Lena's gaze turned down to his _lovely_ sized package. It looked like a desire demon. a Male one. That made her brows raise. Was she in the fade?  
  
"All by yourself. What is a Dweomer doing here? I've only _heard_ of your people."  
  
"Then you know i'm not a Dweomer." She retorted as she now approached it, confident in what she now knows. If this was the fade and she was here. Then she was dreaming. _Fade Dreaming._ How she got here, she couldn't recall. but if she's here... her lips twitched up into a wicked grin and she prowled closer to the demon.  
  
_"Oh?"_  
  
"Yeah... though you might not be in the know. I'm a bit more. Something _older_ than the Dweomer. Older than the stone too."

 _"You're..."_ It paused and tilted its head. _"No... the song."_  
  
"Oh yeah baby. Listen. Listen to that tune." She cackled as the fade shifted around her, to what she wanted. The demon tried scrambling back and away, running from her. Her voice became worse, darker and graveled. "You're not going anywhere."

 

* * *

 

It was just like with Feynriel. Drinking the lyrium and then falling as he entered the Fade, somewhere dwarva just did not go to usually. And he was doing it with the Inquisitor, Dorian, and Cassandra instead of Hawke, Merrill, and Anders. It was unusual being here, there... in the fade.  
  
"Ugh... this again." Varric grumbled as he sat up. "Never thought I'd be back in here."  
  
"Remembering your time with Hawke?"  
  
"And then some- wait..."  
  
They froze as the surroundings around them were not what Varric remembered. And the Inquisitor even much less so.

  
"Hmm, reminds me of my Harrowing." Dorian remarked as he looked around.  
  
It was golden and black, with towering twisting dark glass trees with openings and windows that showed off rooms. There were many of them, tall like the skyscrapers Varric remembered from Earth. The streets were black rivers, and the skies were churning black smoke. White wispy creatures flowed and paused in the streets.  
  
"What is this?" The inquisitor asked as they turned and surveyed the city, catching sight of a large statue of a vaguely familiar woman with flowing curled hair holding a sword in one hand and a torch in the other in the center of red water pool. She wore a crown and a flowing green dress. It reminded Varric of the Statue of Liberty in the pictures she had showed him, but twisted.  
  
The Tree-skyscrapers lit up bright, messages streaming across them.  
  
_MAMA IS ALWAYS WATCHING._  
_ALL MEMORY SPIRITS ARE TO BE EVALUATED FOR AUDITING_  
COMPLY WITH ORDINANCE DEMONS FOR A SPECIAL TREAT!  
  
Varric gulped. He was beginning to think Lena wasn't the one who needed saving.

Getting to "City Hall" in the the Dark City in the Fade was easy, but getting up to see the "Mother" was hard. There was paperwork to be filed, copies made in triplicate and Varric had to do it all with the Inquisitor, Dorian, and Cassandra watching him amazed that he knew how to navigate the streets and trains to the different departments. It all resembled the train systems of Earth. There was even a subway and Varric was pinching the bridge of his nose as he finally handed over the papers to the Demon Receptionist of "Tedium" who stamped the papers and handed over the "visitor" passes to the top floor. The elevator up was especially long and played the same propaganda. MOTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING. TUESDAYS ARE TERRIFIC DAYS. BE SURE TO SUBMIT YOUR COMPLIMENTS TO MOTHER BY FIVE PM WEDNESDAY. _OR ELSE_

"She's a bit... full of herself?" Dorian commented and Varric groaned.  
  
"I've created a monster."

"You?" Cassandra was flabbergasted.  
  
"Yeah. I might have told her she was a genius, once or twice."  
  
"Once or twice?!"  
  
The doors opened into a great viewing room. Varric stepped in to see Lena, _his_ Lena. And then he saw her again, and again. There were dozens of Lenas working tirelessly at the screens that were hooked up to spirits, painfully drawing their essence and memory into viewable formats for her.  
  
"What are we seeing?"  
  
"Inquisitor! Darling! Pentaghast, Pavus... How good of you to finally make your way up here." Selena, or Varric thinks it was Selena, greeted them as she came down a dais with a tablet of sorts she was typing at. Her head twitches to the right and her eyes became blue and her voice darkened. "Sub section AAZ, codex 4923. Store that memory in heading Ancient Elvhen." Her head snapped back to the group with a strained smile.  
  
Varric gaped. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Ruling! And Data Mining. Spirits are a horde of unused and lost memories. Solas was RIGHT we should be studying the fade. There is so much here. Did you know a mage invented the TELESCOPE in Ancient 6893. I've got the schematics here. of course I'm comparing the information. Spirits are so fickle by taking sides and not being objective. But I'll get everything I could ever want." Her head snapped to the right and once again her eyes glowed blue, a stream of numbers and letters coming out.

"Honey... love. You've got to stop." Varric stepped up toward Selena, slow and so she knew he wasn't going to do anything.  
  
"Stop? No way. This is important."  
  
"Love... we, well we came to _save_ you but I think we need to save everyone else."  
  
"Oh pish. Come to save the demons. They are _demons_ Varric. They don't need saving."  
  
"You've turned the fade into-"  
  
"New York! I know. Isn't it great? Who needs to go back to Earth when its all right here. Look I even have my own R &D department. Come on look look!" Selena gave a pause and her body seemed to split, a shadow, replicate of herself, forming and walking forward. Varric stepped back as the one with the tablet remained behind but the new one grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the elevator.  
  
"How did she?" Dorian was flummoxed and he followed after them. Cassandra and Inquisitor were silent observers.

"When you start thinking of yourself as components, you can do it. I call it the Horcrux method, but that' a bit crude." Selena explained as the elevator whizzed down. She waved her hand and the propaganda stopped playing. "Sorry about that. It's mostly to power the rebellions."  
  
"Rebellions?"  
  
"You can't run a successful empire without inciting rebellion. I keep the rebellion funded, they overhtrow _me_ and then in a few years I take back over when they can't sustain themselves. Basic Totalitarian methods." Selena explained.  
  
"years? Lena, dear it's been barely a few hours."  
  
Selena looked to him and squinted. "No... oh. right Yeah Time doesn't work like that in the Fade."

 

* * *

 

"We have to do something." Dorian whispered to Varric. "We'll never leave here if we don't."  
  
"If you don't. I will." Cassandra seethed as once again the memory of Galyan flitted around to tempt her. The vein in her temple throbbing.  
  
Varric sighed. "I don't even know how to get her to wake up."  
  
"Talk to her? Maybe if you reason with her?"  
  
"Inquisitor. She comes from a culture that values logic. Reasoning with her isn't going to work." Varric rubbed his temples as he watched the busy flow of the shadows of Lena running around. There was a hum in the fade.

"Sentiment." Cassandra offered.  
  
"What about it Seeker?"  
  
"Convince her with Sentiment. You once said she loves you."  
  
Varric opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. "Yes but-"  
  
"I remember her saying Sentiment clouds reason too often. Perhaps if you-"  
  
Varric held a hand up to shush Cassandra so Lena didn't catch wind of what they were planning. But he got what she was saying. "Wait outside."  
  
"You don't have to be alone-"  
  
"No... for this. If it doesn't work, leave us both. But I think I know what you meant Seeker. Just give me some privacy."

He approached the dais "Selena" sat on and watched her eyes flash blue and return to normal while muttering. "Selena, Its time to go back."  
  
"Varric, I'm not going anywhere. there is so much to do!"  
  
"I know. But, I need you. It's been decades." He whispered as she let him get closer.  
  
Selena put her tablet down and looked up for one second. "Has it really been that long?"  
  
"Yes. I need you, love. *We *need you. " His lips spread into a sad smile. "Barty, and Merida. Nala and-"  
  
"Oh...."  
  
"Yeah." her eyes stopped glowing blue for a whole minute.

"If it's been decades the children would have grown. They can take care of themselves by now. They don't need me." Her eyes returned to flashing blue and Varric groaned. He had to resort to begging.

" _I n_ eed you." He whispered huskily to her ear. The buzzing noise of workers stopped and Varric felt everything hush as dozens of Lena shadows and Selena looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"It has been decades since we-" One Shadow called.  
  
"Noo, we did it just last month!"  
  
"Maybe you did but the rest of us aren't so lucky to have vacation days. I was just created three months ago!"  
  
"Shut it young shade!"  
  
The shadows began bickering back and forth, while Selena on the dais was watching him. Considering. "I know what you're doing."  
  
"What am I doing?" varric asked as he lowered himself to his knees. Selena's eyes flashing, but she didn't stop as his mouth got to work.  
  
"You can't raise dissent by- by... uh... uhhhh..."  
  
He could feel them come to them as the dais transformed into a heated pool below them. She had always said their best time had been in that hot spring on their second honeymoon. They were joining them in the water, and as they grew conjoined and grew closer.... _she_ grew closer until...  
  
He woke up panting and red faced in the tent and Lena was curled up next to him, a pleased smile as her eyes fluttered opened. "Varric?" Came her husky voice.  
  
"Love?"  
  
"Hey." She said and rolled over, her hands immediately working to rid him of his pants.  
  
"Selena I don't-"  
  
"Shhh... you got me all in the mood back there."  
  
A strained cough had her pause and she turned to see Solas and a few inquisition scouts staring wide eyed.  
  
"Shall I inform the Inquisitor you're back?"

 

* * *

 

**BACK IN THE FADE**

The Demon of Tedium eyed the empty head room. He had been here just when the Mother had disappeared in a flash. This whole thing was a mess. Mother had created this city from the ground up and without her, there was a mountain of paperwork to be filled out, severance packages to dole out, people to fire, new rules to put in place and not to mention they had to find a replacement for Mother's position.

Tedium grinned. Tedium was going to have sooo much fun filling that position

 

* * *

 

"You've ruined it." Solas snapped one morning as he drank a cup full of tea.

"Sorry what?" Lena asked as she gobbled up the nug bacon Varric had cooked for her.

"The Fade. Exactly how am I supposed to know which department to access the Archive of Local Memory?" He growled.

"Fuck if I know. I never gave anyone access to the Memories. Someone else must be running the joint." Lena shrugged and snickered into her hand when Solas stormed off.


End file.
